Toby Quadrate Wiki:Style/Organization
Toby Quadrate Wiki has a specific set of guidelines regarding the organization in articles and the site. It is recommended to be consistent with such to keep the wiki neat and easy to navigate. Introduction This page will answer many of your questions pertaining to articles on this wikia. If you can not find your answer, please ask an administrator. What is an article An article should be a page, officially named, with a topic falling under one of these categories: *A character from Toby Quadrate. *A crew from Toby Quadrate. *An episode of Toby Quadrate. *A place in Toby Quadrate. *An event in Toby Quadrate. *A significant thing from Toby Quadrate. *Related-content Toby Quadrate. Guidelines :See 'Toby Quadrate Wiki:Style/Guidelines' for more information. Article titles The article title must be the subject's official name, e.g. "Toby Quadrate" instead of "Main Character." The article title should be official but also concise. For example, even though "TobParker Quadrate Junior" is the Toby's full name, his article should be titled "Toby Quadrate" because it is the most commonly-used, accurate version of his name. When an official name is not available, one that fits the subject's description should be used, e.g. "Character's friends." Articles with descriptive titles should have the category Category:Conjectural-titled articles added to it. Article titles should follow capitalization rules mentioned below. Linking :See 'Toby Quadrate Wiki:Style/Technical#Links' for more information. References :See 'Toby Quadrate Wiki:Style/Technical#References' for more information. Source quality Not all sources are created equal. Please consider the nature of the source you are citing. Websites that are editable by users are not considered reliable sources. Good sources: *''Toby Quadrate'' websites (including press releases and official social media pages) *Websites citing official press releases or specializing in television (e.g., tvguide.com) *Any verified Twitter account (e.g., @TobyQuadrate) *Tumblr accounts used exclusively by Toby Quadrate staff (e.g., tobyquadrate.tumblr.com) Bad sources: *IMDB *TV.com *Wikipedia (unless it gives citations and you verify their accuracy) *Unverified Twitter accounts *Blogs, opinion pages, etc. *Unverified, leaked material (content could change before airing) Stubs Do not add Category:Article stubs directly to an article. Instead use the Stub template by adding to the top of the article, after any infobox template. Articles should only be marked as a stub if the article is incomplete and is missing some basic information. For example, even though the article about the minor thing does not have many sections, it should not be marked a stub because there is nothing else worthwhile to say about it. When adding a quotation Use the Template:Quote for one-liners. Quotes should be either memorable or illustrative of the character's personality. It's best to write the quotations in a "Quote" section. Please limit the number of quotes per page to five. Specific issues Use of quote marks :See 'Toby Quadrate Wiki:Style/Technical#Quotes' for more information. Use of commas Please use "Oxford commas" when appropriate. Example: "Woman has dated Man" instead of "Woman has dated Man." Confused on when to use commas between adjectives? *Does the sentence make sense if the adjectives are written in reverse order? *Does the sentence make sense if the adjectives are written with and between them? If you answer yes to these questions, then the adjectives are coordinate and should be separated by a comma. Here are some examples of coordinate and non-coordinate adjectives: *He was a difficult, stubborn child. (coordinate) *They lived in a white frame house. (non-coordinate) *She often wore a gray wool shawl. (non-coordinate) *Your cousin has an easy, happy smile. (coordinate) The 1) relentless, 2) powerful 3) summer sun beat down on them. (1-2 are coordinate; 2-3 are non-coordinate.) The 1) relentless, 2) powerful, 3) oppressive sun beat down on them. (Both 1-2 and 2-3 are coordinate.)http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/607/02/ Have more questions? Please see this page by Connecticut Community College or this page by Purdue University. Use of apostrophes Please follow the standard English guidelines for apostrophe use. Specifically, note how to use them for years (e.g., use '90s instead of 90's; use 1980s instead of 1980's). Here is a special note on its versus it's: *Its is the possessive pronoun of it. It indicates ownership/possession of a quality or object. *It's is a contraction of it is or it has. If the sentence doesn't make sense if you replace "it's" with "it is" or "it has", you probably meant to use its. Please also see this handy guide. Capital letters :See 'Toby Quadrate Wiki:Style/Literacy#Capitalization' for more information. Capitalization of article titles and section headers should include the first letter of the first word being a capital letter, but it should otherwise follow the normal English rules of capitalization. For example, a section title should be "External links" instead of "External Links." Spelling :See 'Toby Quadrate Wiki:Style/Literacy#Spelling' for more information. For the purpose of maintaining consistency, and because the subject of this wiki originates from the United States, words on this wiki should conform to the spelling used in U.S. English. This applies only to main namespace pages, not talk or user pages. Although no user should be harassed or punished for using other regional spellings of words, editors are encouraged to conform text in articles to U.S. spelling. If you come across a word spelled the way it is in another country (for example if you see "color" spelled as "colour"), just change it to the U.S. English spelling and be done with it. Verb tense :See 'Toby Quadrate Wiki:Style/Literacy#Tenses' for more information. Viewpoint Unlike Wikipedia, we write our articles from two different perspectives. * In-universe perspective: Articles about narrative elements — also called "in-universe articles" — are written as if the topic were real, but one that no longer exists. Generally, in-universe articles have two distinct parts. The majority of the article — what we frequently refer to as the "body" — is written from this in-universe article. But these articles can have a section called "behind the scenes". This part of the article — which is always the last major section — is written from a "real world perspective". * Out-of-universe perspective: Articles about out-of-universe things are also called "real-world articles". Generally, these, too, should be written in the past tense, in order to minimise the amount of editing that has to be done on the article in the future. However, there are some instances in which the present tense may be warranted. The difference between an in-universe and out-of-universe perspective is immediately apparent from the first sentence of our article about Toby Quadrate as compared with Wikipedia's article: Note how the in-universe perspective allows the opportunity to declare what "Toby Quadrate" actually is. It's not a character, not a person, but, in fact, an alias. That's something you can only easily note if you're writing as if the Toby Quadrate world is a "reality". Conversely, the out-of-universe perspective affords a chance to note the real world significance of the "Toby Quadrate" — which is that he is the central character of a media franchise. Prefixes Prefixes are used to preface a story name, given as the source for a statement of fact in an article. On Toby Quadrate Wiki, it is used them to maintain the in-universe perspective of articles dealing with issues in the world of Toby Quadrate (see '#Viewpoint). Prefixes can be ignored when necessary in real-world articles, but their use in in-universe articles is strongly required to keep the viewpoint preserved. In the example, the prefix is TV: :The hero will fight the villain and eventually beat him. (TV: "Episode name") ;In-universe sources :Prefixes that are used on this site for the citation of stories are: ;Out-of-universe sources :Confined mostly to reference sources, the following prefixes may be used in any "real world" article, or in the "behind the scenes" section of an in-universe article. While the in-universe prefixes are strictly by medium, the out-of-universe ones emphasise type of material. Gender-neutral language :Read 'this article' from Wikipedia for more on gender-neutral language use. Below are excerpts from that article. Gender-neutral language avoids constructions that might be interpreted by some readers as an unnecessary reinforcement of traditional stereotypes. Gender-neutral language does not inherently convey a particular viewpoint, political agenda or ideal. Examples of non-neutral language that can often be easily avoided are: *A masculine or feminine pronoun to refer to a generic or hypothetical person *Man to stand for both genders in general, either as a separate item (man's greatest discoveries), a prefix (mankind, manmade), or a suffix (businessman, fireman) *Uncommon gender-marked terms (conductress, career woman, male nurse, aviatrix), with the possible implication that the participation of the subject's gender is uncommon, unexpected or somehow inappropriate *Non-parallel expressions (man and wife rather than husband and wife). Another example of lack of parallelism would be the use, in the same article, of first names for women and last names for men, unless the people involved have a documented preference in this regard. There are a number of ways of avoiding the use of generic masculine and feminine pronouns; the following are examples. *Pluralising (not "A player starts by taking up his position", but "Players start by taking up their positions"), although this can be problematic where the text needs to emphasize individuals, or where it creates a need to switch regularly between singular and plural. *Using he or she ("Each politician is responsible for his or her constituency"), although this can be ungainly if repeated within a short space. *Otherwise rewording (not "A pilot must keep his spacepod under control at all times; if he loses control, he must hit 'new game' immediately", but "A pilot must keep the spacepod under control at all times; if that control is lost, the pilot must hit 'new game' immediately"). *In Toby Quadrate universe, there are too many genders that are not typically male and female. For all gender individuals, they should be defined by default over the pronoun "it", only being an exception when it is referred to or commonly treated as masculine and feminine by other individuals, and can use their respective pronouns. There is no Wikipedia consensus either for or against the singular they ("Each politician is responsible for their constituency"). Although it is widely used in informal writing and speech, its grammatical validity is disputed. This wiki allows the use of the "singular they". Some methods of avoiding generic masculine pronouns, such as the use of the pronouns "one" or (especially) "you", are seen as unencyclopedic and are thus discouraged in Wikipedia articles. Date and time formatting :Read 'this article' from Wikipedia for more on date and time formatting and standards. Below are excerpts from that article. Remember to always link dates in your first mention with a Timeline article about the example code: January 1, 2020 which results in January 1, 2020 Acceptable date formats The following date styles are acceptable in Wikipedia articles, subject to rules included thereafter: : Unacceptable date formats The following date styles are not acceptable in the Toby Quadrate Wiki except in external titles and quotes: *We do not use ordinal suffixes, articles, or leading zeros (except for the YYYY-MM-DD format). We do not insert a comma between month and year, nor does it insert a full stop after the day (12 October 2020); however, when using the mdy format, a comma is required between day and year. When a date in mdy format appears in the middle of text, include a comma after the year (The weather on September 8, 2001, was clear and warm). Write out the full year string instead of using the apostrophe to abbreviate the first two digits of the year. : * An exception to this guideline is when a specific style of a date achieves notability within a culture, such as the Fourth of July (does not adhere to ordinal nor spelled out guideline, yet is acceptable). * Do not use year-final numerical date formats (DD/MM/YYYY or MM/DD/YYYY), as they are ambiguous: "03/04/2005" could refer to 3 April or to March 4. For consistency, do not use such formats even if the day number is greater than 12. * Do not use customized variations of the YYYY-MM-DD format. E.g., do not replace hyphen characters ("-") with any other character; do not change the order of year, month, or day. Use leading zeros for days or months when needed to make these fields two digits. * Yearless dates (March 5) are inappropriate unless the year is obvious from the context. There is no such ambiguity with recurring dates, such as January 1 is New Year's Day. * Do not use Roman numerals, such as "MMXII" for "2012", to denote years. Names The following rules are to be used when naming a character in an article: *Use both the first and last name for the first mention only. *When the first full name of the character is cut and minimized when commonly referred to by the characters, it should be written after further mention in the article. Scripts :The guidelines for proper transcript format can be found 'here. General tips :For tips on improving article writing and general quality guidelines, please read 'this article' from Wikipedia. Article do's and do not's Do *Write in paragraphs *Use punctuation *Link *Add sources *Add categories *Fix grammar *Use templates Do not *Forget capitalization *Add lists of attributes *Leave blank articles *Vandalize articles *Add speculative information *Add both appearance and personality in info boxes Article talk pages Please keep the topic of article talk page discussions about improving the article itself. Do not post personal opinions, theories, comments, etc. Those belong in a blog or on the forum. Category:Manual of style